"Yes, I've been asked quite a bit lately on the relation between the assessment value and the market value," said McQuade. "And while I won't comment on that, I can tell you this..."

With that, McQuade told CCDC commissioners that for the past few years, Ada County's assessed values have close to 90 percent of sales values.

"It's important that we come within, plus or minus, ten percent," said McQuade (in other words no lower than 90 percent or no higher than 110 percent). That figure is arrived by dividing the median assessed values of all properties by the median sales values of properties sold.
"Last year in Ada County, it was about 93 percent, the year before it was 96 percent and the year before that was 98 percent," said McQuade.

The county assessor had very good overall news for CCDC when he reported that market values, both personal and commercial, in the city of Boise were $23.2 billion, up more than 12 percent from a year ago. That number comes down to approximately $19 billion in taxable market value when you subtract homeowners' exemptions (approximately $4.2 billion) and other exemptions (approximately $235 million) and take out certain commercial properties taxed by the state of Idaho (approximately $312 million).

There are about 80,200 residential and 6,200 commercial parcels in the city of Boise ,and market values have jumped 9 percent for residential land parcels and a whopping 22 percent in commercial land parcels.

"But the real stunning news is that new construction taxable value in the city of Boise has jumped to $283 million, an increase of nearly 63 percent," said McQuade. "These numbers are phenomenal."

As for the tax burden in Ada County, McQuade said that burden rested more on residences (59 percent) than commercial properties (41 percent) in 2014.

"I can tell you that market values seem to have stabilized this year," he said. "But who knows what they'll be next year?"